Level Five Water Restrictions In Brisbane

Level 5 water restrictions were introduced in Brisbane on April 10. The city council is asking everybody to try to reduce their water use to 140 litres per day. On average, each person in Brisbane currently uses about 198 litres of water per day. The restrictions include the following measures:

Gardens and lawns

All outdoor sprinkling and hosing is banned. Watering of gardens is strictly limited to using a hand held watering can or bucket filled directly from a tap. Gardens can only be watered in this way for 3 hours on alternate evenings of the week.

Vehicle washing, house cleaning, outdoor showers

You can use town water from a bucket filled directly from a tap to:

• Wash car mirrors, glass, number plates and potentially damaging marks – not the rest of the vehicle (except at a commercial car wash)
• Flush an inboard or outboard motor or vehicle’s brakes to prevent corrosion and maintain safe operation
• Clean wheelie bins and barbecues for health and safety purposes.

You can also use a high pressure cleaning unit to clean external areas of houses and paved areas:

• for health and safety reasons
• during pre-painting and pre-sale preparation activities
• to maintain external surfaces once every year
• to maintain roof surfaces once every three years

Outdoor showering is not permitted.

Existing pools and outdoor spas

Until 1 July 2007, topping up with town water is only permitted on alternate evenings between 4pm and 7pm.

From 1 July 2007, you can top-up pools and outdoor spas using water from a rainwater tank or downpipe rainwater diverter. You can use town water as a last resort if three of the following measures are in place (but only at at the permitted times above):

• swimming pool cover
• water efficient taps and showerheads
• water efficient toilets
• water efficient washing machines

Pets

You can use town water:

• to wash your pet using a hand held hose
• for drinking
• for cleaning your pets’ enclosures with a high pressure water cleaning unit

Fines

Water patrol officers patrol our streets and will fine anyone caught breaching the current water restrictions. Fines include:

• first offence – $150
• second offence (within two years of first offence) – $225
• third offence (within two years of first offence) – $300

Dam levels

Dam levels remain at an all time low in Queensland. The combined dam water levels for South East Queensland on 17th April was 19.97%.

Queensland Water Commission Chair Elizabeth Nosworthy said, “So far our water saving effort has been great, but we need to keep up the effort and maintain water savings in the coming months. We have a long way to go to secure our water supply, we all have to conserve every drop.”